made of gold (we were gonna live in a treehouse and make babies)
by serenadreams
Summary: Children's dreams of the future are so much simpler than reality. But occasionally things work out just as they always hoped they would. Childhood sweethearts AU.


_**This is inspired by Ane Brun's gorgeous The Treehouse Song. I strongly recommend listening to it because it's the most precious thing ever created and gives me a lot of feelings.**_

 _ **A silly little thing for no other reason than it appeared on the page. Wrote it in twenty minutes, so forgive the brevity.**_

 _I was gonna love you till the end of all daytime_

 _And I was gonna keep all our secret signs and our lullabies_

 _I was made to believe that our love would grow old_

Felicity was ten when she had her heart broken for the first time. A sobbing little girl pressing her hands against the back window of a car as she watched her best friend get smaller and smaller as they drove away.

Oliver Queen was the love of her young life. Her protector, her confidant, her favorite person in the whole world.

They were inseparable from the moment she could walk. Which at first she only did for him. A four-year-old boy holding her chubby little hand as she took her first few steps. He was her first word at age two; a garbled exclamation of _"O'lver"_ shocking her parents into silence and putting a grin on his face that didn't fade for days.

When she was four and he was six, she proudly announced at the dinner table that he was her boyfriend and they were going to get married. The adults humored them, and when they had a ceremony a couple of weeks later, with all their combined stuffed animals gathered to watch, her mom took a photo of their smiling little faces and hung it on the wall. They exchanged gummy rings which they later ate, and Felicity wore a princess tiara.

When he went to kindergarten without her, because she was still too young, she sat on her front porch and cried. He kissed her nose and told her he'd draw her a picture and give it to her when he came back.

Oliver was eight when he asked her if she thought they'd have babies of their own someday. One of their neighbors had brought a little girl back from the hospital a couple of days before and both children had been fascinated by the wrinkly little pink thing. Felicity nodded without hesitation.

"Of course we will. We'll have lots of them so they can all play together."

Oliver agreed and said very seriously that they had to name one of them Thomas because "He's my favorite train! You can name the girls though." "Pocahontas and Dora." Felicity decided. "And we'll live in treehouse." " _Definitely_."

They always held hands when they went on outings together. Their parents would take them to a fair or the beach and they'd hold hands the whole time. Oliver said it was because she was very small and he was worried she might get lost.

When he was ten some of his friends from school saw them hand in hand in the playground and started teasing him. One of them called her a stupid little girl, and another called her four eyes, because of her pink glasses. Oliver kicked him in the shin and got sent to the office.

It never occurred to either of them that they wouldn't be together forever. It was simply a fact, a certainty like the sky is blue and ice cream is amazing. They were going to spend the rest of their lives together. No question about it.

And then Felicity's father was offered a job in Las Vegas and her parents sat her down and explained that they'd be moving house.

She ran away when they told her. She packed her school backpack with snacks and her favorite teddy bear and all the coins from her piggy bank and went next door to Oliver's to tell him to do the same. He did so without argument, but their plan was foiled by his father, who caught them trying to sneak out and yelled at them, making Felicity cry.

She didn't speak a single word to her parents in the days leading up to the move. Their house was slowly packed up, everything put into boxes and loaded into vans, and Oliver and Felicity watched it all side by side, neither quite able to believe that it was really happening.

They both cried when it was time for her to leave. Well Oliver cried, and Felicity screamed. She was too old to have tantrums, and she'd never had them when she was younger, but she did then. She lay on the ground and refused to get into the car, while Oliver begged her parents to change their minds.

Her father ended up having to pick her up and bodily put her into the backseat. She scratched his face, drawing blood and Oliver grabbed onto her ankles and tried to pull her out of her dad's grip. His own parents held him back as she was placed into the car, all of them shaken by the children's show of desperation.

She screamed and cried and pressed her face against the glass, watching helplessly as he struggled to run after the car as it started to pull away. His father had an arm around his chest holding him in place and his mother was on her knees in front of him, tears in her own eyes as she tried to calm her near hysterical son.

None of them ever forget that moment.

Felicity never forgets the sight of him fighting to stay with her, or the sound of his voice calling her name as they drove away. Oliver never forgets the look on her face as the car disappeared into the distance, or the way she pushed against the glass with her little hands and cried for him to stay with her. Their parents never forget the moment their children's hearts break for the first time.

* * *

A twenty-three year old Felicity is pretty happy with her life. She's got a degree from MIT and a job she doesn't hate at an up and coming Tech Company in Starling City. She has a cute little apartment and friends she has lunch with on the weekends. Her boss is a sexist idiot, but the knowledge that she'll probably be running the whole company by the time she's thirty keeps her from minding too much.

Oliver's in the city on a business trip, at twenty-five he's managing two nightclubs and is a part owner of two other businesses. His college days, while slightly patchy academically and filled with more alcohol than is probably healthy, left him with a degree in business and some very good connections. His life isn't perfect, but he's rich and surrounded by friends, so he can't really complain.

But for some reason, on a Tuesday morning, fate decides to step in.

It's the cheesiest thing really. And looking back on it years later they both laugh at the improbability of the moment, even while thanking God that it happened.

He's late for a meeting and hails a cab with his phone pressed to his ear and his hands juggling a dossier and a coffee cup. He doesn't pay attention as a cab stops a few yards away, just tucks the papers under his arm and grabs for the door.

The next thing he knows a woman is yelling at him as his coffee stains a pale pink shirt. The top of a blonde head hits his chest and he just manages to catch her elbow before she falls backwards into the cab, from which he's assuming she was trying to get out of, when he ran into her. Literally.

He's rushing to apologize when she looks up and meets his eyes. And then nothing else matters. Business meetings or spilled coffee or documents scattered across sidewalks.

His breath catches in his throat and for a second he's twelve years old again, watching her being taken away from him and thinking that nothing else in the world could ever hurt as much as that.

She's dyed her hair and her glasses aren't pink anymore. But her eyes are the same as they always were, and all it takes is his name on her lips for him to realize that something else never changed.

He never fell out of love with Felicity Smoak.

A framed picture of their first wedding has hung on Felicity's wall since she was a little girl. Twenty years later another one hangs beside it.

They don't live in a treehouse, but they do have lots of babies. And the second time they get married the rings are made of gold instead of candy, and they never take them off again.

 _so many times_

 _we drank fine wine in one swallow_

 _and in those late nights_

 _we painted our walls bright yellow_


End file.
